


A Great Blessing

by Mussimm



Series: Works and Days [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mussimm/pseuds/Mussimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven kingdoms post-canon ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Vale

Jaime only had sympathy for a traumatised girl. That was all.

He’d never been to the Eyrie but he imagined the way the wind dashed itself against the Wall reminded Sansa of her time there. The sheer cliff Crows Roost sat beside must have looked like the Mountains of the Moon.

He shifted his weight, the pins and needles in his foot radiating upwards. He’d been at vigil too long but the guards of their makeshift Maidenvault could be bribed.

The wind howled through the ancient towers, or maybe it was the Others calling to them.

Really, if he was being honest with himself, it was about currying favour with Jon Snow. The Northerners had no love for him and no reason to trust his loyalty. He would have to trust these men to watch his back in battle. What better way than to protect their princess until his feet went numb? It was the only smart thing to do.

Technically he wasn’t released from his oath to Lady Catelyn, if he really thought about it.

He hadn’t been able to return the girls to their mother and Brienne had reasoned – no,  _ he _ had reasoned – that keeping them from harm was the proper way to honour their oath. It was only the knightly thing to do. Knights protected the weak and the innocent. Surely Sansa was one of those things, even if he couldn’t figure out which.

At the far end of the hall Littlefinger passed by the doorway. If Jaime was anyone else he might have believed that the little weasel wasn’t checking to see if he still stood guard. Or maybe he would have believed that the first three times it happened. How many other casual passers-by were little birds singing to the Lord Paramount of the Vale?

They would be the only birds singing songs in this weather.

Each shadow crept along the hall, another potential assailant. It was death to raise a hand to the Living now, murderers and maimers hanged without trial. But putting a bastard in a young girl’s belly was not a crime yet. Sansa owed more to Jaime than she knew.

He was doing this for her, for Lady Catelyn, for Jon, for himself. Hells, he’d even do it for Littlefinger to stop the man getting a sword through his belly.

All those things were easier to bear than to think he was a lovestruck fool again, trying to change the world and himself for a Lady who could never be his wife. Maybe would not be his wife even if she could.

No, he’d do it for others.

Jaime tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword as a page walked by the far door. 


	2. The Westerlands

“We have to turn back, my lady.”

Brienne ignored Ser Addam Marbrand, focussed instead on guiding her horse. The snows were treacherous on horseback. Go too fast and the risk stumbling, too slow and risk freezing. Too slow also risked the complaints of the Westermen, so new to the North they hadn’t even settled their belongings with the Nights Watch.

“Lady Brienne, this is suicide,” Ser Addam tried again. 

She ought to have left them stranded in their frozen camp in the Riverlands rather than bringing them north. 

“This is the North,” she said. “And do you think anyone else will reinforce them? We’re almost there.”

The trees weren’t thick, it was only the fog that stopped them seeing where they were going. They weren’t far off the scouting party holed up in a place called Craster’s Keep. She hadn’t made the journey North of the Wall before but the Nights Watchmen guiding them knew the way and pointed to a map regularly, tracking their progress.

“Ahead,” said the brother, pointing to a rise.

Shadows swarmed amongst the trees in the mist, threatening wights. The horses behind her skittered, and she assumed the men would have as well. Four hundred battle-seasoned men from Lannisport and the winter had turned them all grass green.

But shadows were only shadows and snow was only snow. Bonfires ahead turned the fog golden and signs of battle turned the snow red.

Amongst the tiny outbuildings men laboured, dragging corpses to their funeral pyre. They were well-worn by battle, covered in black blood and weary. The party had left two weeks before she had arrived and this must have been what delayed their return.

Brienne held up a hand, bringing their party to a halt. Jaime was crouched above a corpse, halfway done relieving the dead man of his valuable weapon.

When he looked up, she was captured by the radiance of his gaze. Relief and exhaustion warred on his face, a smile spreading slowly until he glowed like the fires surrounding him. Brienne felt the smile creep onto her own face. He was alive, green eyes alight and cheeks ruddy.

“We’re here to reinforce you,” Brienne breathed out on a puff of mist, her voice half-stolen from her by relief.

Jaime moved forward like a sleepwalker, sliding a hand along her horse’s shoulder to rest near her thigh. His eyes didn’t leave hers. The mist of their breath intermingled in the frozen air and her heart thumped in her chest. He was alive.

Ser Addam cleared his throat pointedly and Brienne started. Jaime looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time, a new sort of worry replacing his joy.

“Marbrand! Shouldn’t you be at the Rock? What has happened to my sister?”

The joy rising in Brienne’s chest turned cold.


	3. Dorne

“You will die.”

Brienne had the nerve to roll her eyes. “You can’t think everything in the world will kill me.”

Jaime ran a hand through his hair. “A spear wielder, Brienne. He is a spear wielder.”

“King Jon needs a champion and I am the best swordsman at Crows Roost. Can you help me with this?” she pointed to the tie on her shoulder she could never reach. Jaime held the piece in place while she tied it.

After everything they’d survived she was going to die in some asinine trial by combat when she wasn’t even on trial. He grabbed the edge of his cloak in his teeth and nicked it with his dagger, then started working a strip free.

“He’ll dance out of your reach. Once you’re tired he’ll try to hamstring you or take out your ankles. Or his spear might be poisoned and he’ll just try to nick you. Spear fighters don’t just try to kill you, they cripple you first. Even if you win, you lose.”

The corner of her lip tugged upward. “Then I won’t be struck.”

Jaime tamped down on his anger and fear, he couldn’t panic every time she was in danger. If for no other reason than he would always be panicking. He kept working at the strip on his cloak, the red velvet coming apart strand by strand. “Be safe. That’s all I ask. And if you die I’m taking Oathkeeper back.”

Oh, seven damn her and those blue eyes. She turned them on him and his stomach flipped about inside him.  _ She _ was the one needlessly risking her life again, he ought to have been the one to put her on the spot. They were already freezing and starving to death, under constant siege from wights and the sun hadn’t risen in anyone’s memory, and she had to find some other way to try to get herself killed.

“I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important, Ser Jaime,” she said softly.

He laughed. “Matters of honour gravitate toward you,  _ Lady _ Brienne. Everyone knows you’re the only one starry-eyed enough to take them on.”

She kept fastening her armour and he kept trying to get a long enough strip free from his cloak and the heavy silence settled over them. At least he was here to watch this time, he wouldn’t just see her disappear into the darkness and have to wonder what had become of her.

Brienne stood with a clatter of armour. She drew Oathkeeper’s scabbard about her hips. “Wish me luck.”

Jaime couldn’t answer, one end of the velvet strip in his mouth as he tried to wriggle the last bit free. She eyed him, crestfallen, and turned to leave just as the final threads gave way.

“Brienne.”

She turned back toward him and he seized one of her hands. With one hand and teeth and some difficulty he tied the red velvet strip about her wrist. He patted it, ensuring it was properly secure, then released her.

Brienne gazed at him and he swore he saw tears swimming in her eyes. Her lip trembled until she bit it between oversized teeth. “I will prevail, Ser Jaime.”

“I know you will.”


	4. The Reach

Brienne was dying, she was certain. She had experienced pain before, and cold, and hunger, but nothing compared to the poison seeping into her system. It made her feel like she was rotting from the inside, like infection was eating away at her chest and lungs.

“You’ll feel better soon,” the fat maester said, far too cheery to be tending a dying woman. “Myrish Corruption isn’t fatal if it’s treated. He just wanted to scare you.”

“Ser Jaime,” she rasped. “Where is Ser Jaime?”

“He did stay as long as he could. You’ve been out for two days. Jon won’t spare an able man that long.”

_ Jon. _ It was strange to hear someone call the King by his name. “You know King Jon.”

The maester laughed. In fact he almost giggled. “He was Jon Snow to me long before he was the king. I’m Samwell Tarly. We trained together.”

“How is Princess Sansa? Is she safe?”

“Oh, she’s as well as any of us,” Maester Samwell said. He pressed a cup of water to her lips and she drank deeply. How had King Jon talked her into that foolish duel? The Maester continued, “Nice to see I’m not the only man on the Wall more likely to give favours than to get them.”

Brienne jerked from the bed, her right hand grasping her bare left wrist. He should be with her, she needed him now. The rot crept inside her. She believed Samwell, but her intellect didn’t prevail, she wanted him there to bid him farewell.

Samwell held up the scrap of red velvet. “It’s not lost.”

“Thank you,” Brienne sunk back into bed, fingers wrapped around her token. “He’s… he’s not the type to…”

“Oh, I didn’t mean any offense, my lady. I’m sure before his injury…”

She closed her eyes, squeezing Jaime’s favour in her fist. It would pass, this feeling would pass. He would be here if he could. She wasn’t going to die in this bed while the others died in battle.

“How long?” she asked.

“A few days.” Samwell shrugged. “You’ll be good as new once you’re healed. Ser Jaime asked to be assigned to the top of the Wall instead of ranging. He’ll be here as soon as his shift ends.”

“You don’t need to apologise for him.”

Samwell placed a hand on top of hers, all sympathetic eyes and half smiles. He didn’t speak further and she was grateful for that. Answering him made her feel like her lungs were collapsing in on themselves.

She willed herself back to sleep. Anything to escape this. The room was warm and the furs soft. She was in good hands. She didn’t need to be alert for wights or Others. The rot would fade if she just gave it time. Despite the pain she felt herself drifting.

“He’ll be here,” Samwell murmured, and that was all it took to send her to sleep.


	5. The Stormlands

The pitch night spread out in every direction to the edge of the world, rolling black clouds blocking out the moon. The braziers that lit the wall threatened to stutter out in the wind that tried to sweep them from their perch.

“It isn’t appropriate for the Evenstar to be a sworn shield, Brienne will be released from her oath at first light.” Jon Snow stood beside Jaime at the top of the wall. The boy king needn’t have visited, so Jaime assumed he was to be given new orders following the whispered war council they’d been holding for near a week.

“Good.” Jaime shrugged. He’d expected Brienne’s release.

“She has been a loyal friend to our house, more loyal than any of our bannermen. Sansa’s first girl will marry Brienne’s heir when the time comes. It’s only right to join our houses.”

A rich reward for the services of a single knight. He may have underestimated Brienne’s intelligence, she had certainly chosen the right house to align herself with. “Why are you telling me all this? Shouldn’t you be telling the Evenstar?”

Jon looked out over the North and it struck Jaime that the White Wolf had a gravitas in this place which he hadn’t credited him. The young king spoke. “When Sansa’s daughter marries your son, it will be the first truly peaceful alliance of Stark and Lannister. Tarth and all its heirs will stand as a testament to friendship between our houses.”

Jaime’s mouth was suddenly dry. He rubbed his lips with a trembling hand. Had they just assumed? Did he have any choice in this? Did she? “Is she to be sold to me like cattle?”

The amount of disdain in Jon’s brown gaze would have made old Ned proud. “I’m speaking to you honestly, Kingslayer. I would appreciate the same in return.”

He couldn’t dare hope. The night wasn’t over, it might not be over for a hundred years. He and Brienne could grow old and die in this place. Or they could stay young and die just the same. Alliances might be reforged, kings and queens could die, Sansa or Brienne might be barren. He couldn’t hope. It was too bitter.

“My sister won’t allow this.”

“Queen Danaerys rules. You are Lord of Casterly Rock. Your sister has no say.”

Jaime leaned against the parapet, his legs weak. “Have you told Brienne?”

“We thought it best if you proposed, when the time is right.”

A jeering laugh escaped his throat.  _ We _ . Their endless council hadn’t been about the war. They were rearranging Westeros in that room, deciding who would head the major houses and who would pay for their treason with their heads. Marriage to Brienne guaranteed his loyalty, they were even going to pay him with Casterly Rock.

“And if she won’t have me?”

If anything the king managed to look more venomous. “Enough, Kingslayer. Everybody knows. If I hear one more word of objection from either one of you I’ll have you both dragged to the Godswood in chains.”


	6. The North

“This is much better than when Tormund was sweet on you,” Sansa grinned, fiddling with the token wrapped about Oathkeeper’s hilt.

Heat flooded Brienne’s face and she kept her eyes fixed on her shoes. If she weren’t so sentimental she might have hidden the scrap of red, but to do so would be tantamount to denying him in public and he deserved better. She had worn Oathkeeper proudly, she would wear his favour proudly as well.

“I wouldn’t think you would find this so amusing,” Brienne said. “You hate Ser Jaime.”

“I don’t care at all about Ser Jaime. He could die and I wouldn’t notice.”

She didn’t contradict her princess but she didn’t believe her either. Their clan feuds aside, there was hardly a man on the wall that wasn’t watching Ser Jaime with interest. The Lannisters had injured almost every person there, directly or indirectly. All eyes were watching to see if Tywin Lannister was born again. People of all the kingdoms were at the Wall now, but mostly Northmen and their gaze was a heavy weight to bear.

Sometimes it felt as though the North itself had come alive to watch her in silent, frozen judgement.

“I appreciate your trust in my judgement,” said Brienne.

Sansa laughed, her frozen-pink cheeks and flaming hair casting her as the only warm person on the Wall. “I think you’ve gone mad. But you seem to be enjoying your madness. He’s enjoying it, too.”

“I haven’t…”  _ I have. I have gone completely mad. I am sitting at the Wall, gossiping with a princess, wearing Jaime Lannister’s favour. Surely I died on the way back from Tarth, or earlier, and this is the hereafter. _

“If you’re letting the Kingslayer court you, you have.”

“He’s not…” Was he?

“Do you love him?” Sansa asked gently.

_ The truth is in the looking glass _ . When had she stopped believing those words? The truth of the looking glass was getting fainter every day under gold and rubies and red velvet. It was rubbed out by smiles and lingering stares, by the way Jaime scrubbed at his hair when she was in trouble and always sat in place to obscure her view of Tormund at dinner. When he looked at her she knew a different truth.

Something terrible and beautiful sat in her chest, locked away under years of recrimination. She told herself every day since Red Ronnet’s rose that she mustn’t hope. Hope would be the thing to break her if she let it.

But now, here, in this endless darkness that iron cage was crumbling day by day and what lay within threatened to break free and fill her with sunshine. The bars bent and tore every time Jaime looked at her. He looked at her and she  _ knew _ that forbidden other truth and that could be enough to give her courage.

“Yes,” she said.

“I knew it,” Sansa grinned. “You’re better than he deserves.”

But the bars hadn’t broken yet. They wouldn’t yet. 


	7. The Riverlands

Jaime knew that Brienne wouldn’t marry a man who couldn’t best her in combat.

He had been getting better with his left hand, his instincts being relearned by real battle rather than sparring. He held out some hope that after a few rounds of a sparring he might know what he needed to do to get the upper hand. But as she brought her sword to bear against him he knew he would be walking away from this ‘training session’ bruised and possibly humiliated. She had been good when they last fought, she was a lot better now.

“Are you sure?” she asked, as if to rub his impotence in his face.

“Wench, if you ask me that once more…”

“As you say.”

He took the first strike, advancing quickly. She parried easily. Ah, how he’d replayed their only fight over in his mind, remembering that perfect defensive posture. If only he’d known back then what he now knew, he would have savoured it more. Particularly the part where she straddled him, although not the part where she tried to drown him.

Jaime led their dance, he still knew the steps. She was fast and strong and stomped about their field like Gregor Clegane which should not have been attractive yet managed to set his heart pounding. Gods, she was strong.

He could do little but hold her off and enjoy the dawning surprise in her eyes as she recognised his improvement. She hadn’t expected him to be able to face her. That was a start. Not enough to win her hand, but a start.

They thrust and parried, step forward, step back, in and out and faster, faster until they were both red-faced and breathing hard. He suffered more than a few bruising hits but so did she and he might have given her some true sport if it weren’t for the unhelpful thoughts creeping their way into his brain. If he just tackled her she’d yield in one way if not the other. All the better if he could entice her to tackle him.

He brought his sword up just in time to stop a blow that would surely have shattered his shoulder. She pressed the advantage, crowding into his space and forcing him backwards. If his heart was in this he would have danced back but with her inches away from him, ugly and beautiful and alive with bloodlust, he was rooted to the spot.

This was hopeless, he realised. He couldn’t fight her to a yield. He couldn’t think about tactics when they were this close and this breathless.

Brienne froze, recognising the look in his eyes had changed.

Their eyes locked, Jaime took the space of a breath to consider the situation. She was his betrothed even if she didn’t know it yet. This was only to please her. She would not be pleased if he ravished her before even proposing.

Jaime dropped his sword, the clatter of it ringing around the yard. “I yield. Well fought, my lady.”

Brienne’s eyes went wide with sadness. He’d robbed her of her diversion and made a poor sport of himself. She’d be sulking about it for a sennight.

Jaime laughed to himself as he hastened from the training yard. She’d have to satisfy herself with a husband who couldn’t best her. If he tried that again it wouldn’t end in a proposal, no matter who won.

_ Oh, wench, how lucky you are to have a betrothed with such self-control. _


End file.
